Those of you who have lived in different parts of the world will know that May is a profoundly different month between the northern and southern hemispheres. For those in the north, it’s a month of thawing and getting ready for more relaxed days ahead. I’m not there to appreciate it for myself at the moment, but I can imagine that it fits with the easing of lockdown restrictions in many jurisdictions. Here in the south, days are becoming shorter, darker and colder. The reopening of venues almost feels like a consolation. An attempt to ensure that people aren’t just going into hibernation alone.

Public health priorities are different too, between these halves of the world at this time. At least I know that here in the southern parts of the world, we are also trying to get ready for the influenza season, in addition to the COVID-19 pandemic. It can be challenging at times, for junior staff like me, to think about more than one disease at the same time.

 All of these shifts and developments in roles and responsibilities will hopefully end up being to the advantage of our loyal audience, who have not deserted us with their messages of support. Earlier this month, Charles represented the Talk Public Health team at the “Global, European and National Response to COVID-19: This Is Public Health” webinar organised by the Core Group of the This Is Public Health Europe campaign. He gave an overview of the work that all three of us on the team have been participating in as part of the pandemic response. Obviously, no opportunity to promote the podcast is ever spared, and we made a point of our contribution to keeping people entertained and well informed while they are in home quarantine!

We might actually be contributing just a little bit more to this knowledge base though, with whisperings afoot of a new podcast episode dropping soon. Hopefully a new month will bring some new public health listening material!